A Hero's Journey Through Science Fiction

Archive for the tag “godzilla”

“It also seems to me that he was a pretty sophisticated toy for a pre-digital age, since he exhibited “behavior” of a sort, and responded to stimuli—or to one stimulus, I should say, and only if you actually hit him at the right spot on the tail. (And never, not once, did I ever make the dart actually stick to his tail, the way that kid did in the commercial.) But soon enough, entropy began to encroach upon the mighty Zor—just as it did on the real dinosaurs—as the ping pong balls went missing or got dinged up so that they wouldn’t fire or (in one case) got accidentally crushed underfoot in the heat of battle. And then his roar gave out, and he began to lurch more like a raucous drunk than a murderous carnivore, and finally his motor fried itself, and the light went out of Zor’s eyes forever. Well, to be honest, he never had a light in his eyes, but you know what I mean. I kept playing with the gun, though, even after the spring inside broke and it wouldn’t fire darts anymore, because it was so cool looking. (Hey, I was eight, alright?) I can still remember the feel of the grip in my hand.

The noble thing to do when he died would have been to bury him in the backyard, so that he could either join with the elements, or fossilize like his brethren and intrigue future paleontologists. I can’t actually remember what happened to him, but it’s possible he’s still in the attic of my parents’ house, along with the broken gun and three and a half ping pong balls, still waiting for me, still fighting mad.” — James Hynes, Cultwriter